Turkey: The historic Byzantine monastery of Chora in Istanbul will be a mosque from today

13 comments

1. > a ceremony to mark the completion of the General Directorate of Vaqufs’ works to preserve 201 historical monuments, including the Chora Monastery

   Preserve… just not how it would be honest and fair.

   >The Chora Monastery was converted into a mosque in 1511, 58 years after the Fall of Constantinople. However, by decision of the Turkish cabinet, it became a museum in 1945.

   >Following this decision, experts from the US carried out a huge restoration and conservation project of the mosaics and frescoes, tearing off plaster that covered them. The work, which began in 1948, was completed ten years later, in 1958.

   >But in 2019 Turkey’s Council of State (Danistay) annulled the 1945 decision and, a year later, President Erdogan announced that the monument would be reopened as a mosque.

   Scum.

2. Disgusting. No one can convince me that it isn’t on purpose to piss people off and please the islamists. Turkey is riddled with mosques and they needed another one? Pigs.

3. The Chora monastery has some exquisitive wall paintings and mosaics from the ill-fated late Byzantine Renaissance (Palaiologian) period. But it seems better for the Turkish government to stress the building with such a use, and cover the masterpieces behind silly curtains..

4. Erdogan has to please Islamo-fascists, he lost the recent election because Islamists protested him.

5. Turkey has 90.000 mosques they don’t need another one. This is done for cheap propaganda but it won’t help Erdoğan.

   Still better than Greece though that destroyed almost all the mosques except for some in Thrace.

   At least Turkey is preserving them.

6. Just imagine how Turkey would react if Israel were to turn a historical mosque into a synagogue

7. [deleted]

8. Common Turkish L

9. Notre Dame de Paris, get ready.

10. Less likely to become a target for destruction by the inevitable rise of jihadists in the country.

11. And Turkey in the EU ? Over our dead bodies 😜

12. Are the mosaics and frescos covered?

13. I am deeply saddened by this decision. These churches mean a lot to us Greeks.